World Reviewer rating

The Red Arrow Train ex. St. Petersburg

From Peter the Greats’ St. Petersburg to Ivan the Terrible’s Moscow this train leaves each city at five to midnight and gets in at five to eight in the morning, crossing paths with a rush at 4am. This is a romantic way to travel between these two great cities, the trains seem to have carriage upon carriage for days into the distance and the inside is pre-Revolution dilapidated grandeur complete with dining car laid out with crystal and bathrooms with barely functional plumbing. Inside it’s well heated but crossing between carriages can be icy and feels rickety.

St. Petersburg has a Moscow station - which is where you catch the train from to go to Moscow. A fast train can take as little as four hours to cover the distance, or you can take more than twice as long on one with many stops. You can ride in luxury with cabins and DVD entertainment or slum it on cold plastic seats. It can be a challenging experience for non Russian speakers to book train tickets, much of the timetabling is done only in Cyrillic and some services are in constant flux.